Going the Distance
by DoublyToxicWaste
Summary: What's to be done when the one you love is forever too busy to even speak more than a handful of words to you at a time without rushing off? When their sheer skill and inclination towards the impossible marks a jagged contrast to the normalcy that makes up your capabilities? There were questions to which Phineas Flynn had never found a good answer.


It was five forty-five PM on Earth, and the daylight was setting quickly. By exactly six o'clock CST Earth-time, it would be all gone, and the planet sky would be illuminated only by Mars' dim reflection and the vast glowing disk of Aplionerth two hundred thousand miles away. Of course, even then it wouldn't be dark, not unless you wanted it to be. The solar energy harvester plant that completely engulfed all of Omega-1 occasionally glowed in the sky, if you happened to look at it at the right time, and more importantly, the star inside the massive power station supplied practically limitless yottawatts of energy… enough to keep all three Local System planets illuminated with ease.

Still, the fading light from of the artificial daylight emitter orbiting in the atmosphere was somewhat fitting to Phineas' mood.

He was, by most definitions of the word, an optimistic person. He'd been there for the draining and the terraforming of the Atlantic Ocean, and had thought it was nifty. He'd been there for the construction of the dyson sphere around Omega-1, and had thought it was neat. He'd been there for the construction of Aplionerth, the artificial megaplanet that the Earth now orbited around, and had called it amazing. The galaxy now, under the joint rule of the Milky Way Galactic Governance Council, was more advanced, more revolutionary, heck, more utopian than many people would have dreamed of a hundred - fifty - even twenty-five years ago.

It was a utopia, in most definitions of the word. And it had all been the work of Phineas' older sister, the one who since birth had been blessed with an amazing capability for nothing short of the impossible. She'd had this amazing gift as long as he could remember, actually. And for the longest time, nothing too noticeable had come of it. Well, that wasn't entirely true - they'd had all these wild misadventures as kids doing all kinds of crazy stuff together, but none of it had really affected the world at large.

That had all changed once Candace had gone to university.

She'd gone at sixteen, and graduated a year later with highest honors, and it was then the world really sat up and started to take notice. Phineas had been thrilled when his favorite - and only - sister had returned to their hometown after graduating, too. He'd been happy for her, as was everyone, but he had perhaps an extra reason for being so thrilled.

For several months before her departure, he - for reasons he still didn't fully grasp altogether - had developed a crush on his older sister. What was not to love about her, he often thought. Sure, she may have been his sister, but… there was more to it, in a way he'd never particularly learned to express. Something about her just… it was weird, he was willing to admit. So weird, even, that he'd scarcely even been able to realize the depth of his own feeling. Thankfully (or perhaps not so thankfully), Ferb was there, in his silent-but-somehow-expressive way, ready to explain away with practiced ease Phineas' strange longing to wrap his older sister in his arms and squeeze her tight and kiss her.

Of course, he'd never done anything with his societally-forbidden desires, at least not then. After all, she had a boyfriend already - someone named Jeremy Johnson - and even if she hadn't, she was his sister, his sister who was capable of things that were straight-up impossible. And he would never have dreamed of hurting her feelings in any way - so if that meant holding his tongue while she dated Jeremy and traveled off to school… that was what he would do.

In retrospect, that decision may have been his downfall.

The year that Candace had been away at university had been… strange. Without his sister around to do the impossible, life had collapsed into a pattern mostly devoid of exciting excursions into outer space or trips through time. At first, Candace had called them every day, at their mother's constant worried insistence. Gradually, however, the frequency of the calls had waned, until they were coming once a week, and sometimes less.

And then one day, she'd called after almost two-and-a-half weeks and announced that Jeremy had broken up with her.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, honey!" their mother had exclaimed.

"Eh." Candace's voice had sounded surprisingly cheery through the speaker. "It's fine. We hadn't talked for like two weeks before then - I have so many extracurriculars I'm involved in - and there's really no time. It's sucky, but not a major loss. I won't let my grades drop over it, at least. Not that that'll be an issue anyway - the professor yesterday nearly had a heart attack when he saw me build a rocketship out of some stuff in the middle of his classroom. I think I've got a handle on this thing."

That had been a day of mixed emotions for Phineas. On one hand, his sister had gone through a breakup. That was a bad thing, he knew, and yet… she seemed so unbothered by it. Maybe it wasn't as bad as all that, then. Of course, there was also the fact that his sister had gone through a breakup, as in, she was now single. If he'd ever had a chance to act on the feelings that only seemed to grow stronger the longer she was away, it was now.

He'd talked of the whole confusing issue to Isabella, the girl from across the street, all while refusing to name his sister as the object of his crush, opting for intentionally vague pronoun usage instead. She hadn't been much help, bursting into tears halfway through the conversation and running off.

Soon thereafter, she and Phineas' stepbrother began dating, and Phineas' problems were still left unanswered.

Nevertheless, he'd squelched his unease at the situation and determined to take his best shot at things as soon as his sister returned from school. Which, soon enough, she had. But she'd been… different, somehow. There was the fact that she had some of the highest, most advanced, degrees in the world before she had her driver's license, but it seemed like it was… more than that, somehow.

And so he'd given her a week to get settled back into their 'old' life, before determining that he had better take the opportunity for all it was worth. After all… someone as incredibly smart and pretty as his older sister surely wouldn't stay single for long.

But that chance, too, had been one snatched away from him. She'd been away, in some laboratory downtown, working away over some invention. He'd tried to get her to come have fun in the backyard like they used to do, but she turned him down.

"That's kid stuff," she'd said. "I'm an adult now - or I will be soon. And I need to act like one. I need to be mature. I'm not a kid - now shoo! I'm busy."

Phineas was not one to let himself be down for very long. But on that day, it had been awfully difficult.

Of course he'd been happy when the newspapers had announced in their bold headlines WORLD HUNGER SOLVED. Who wouldn't be? And he'd been ecstatic when he'd realized that it had been Candace who had brought such a seeming impossibility about. Of course it had been her - he'd always told her that she could one day use her skills to leave a mark on the world. He'd just never expected that day to have come… so soon.

There were other headlines, too, in the years that followed.

COMMON COLD CURED

POPULATION SKYROCKETS: DISASTER IMMINENT?

RED PLANET AVAILABLE FOR HUMAN SETTLEMENT

TIDAL FORCES FROM MOON DISRUPTING PLANETARY PORTALS

MOON ISSUES RESOLVED, WHAT TO EXPECT FROM ARTIFICIAL TIDES

PLANETARY ENERGY CONSUMPTION TOO HIGH: EXPERTS SAY TREND UNSUSTAINABLE

DYSON SPHERE CONSTRUCTION BEGINS: SCIENTISTS WARN OF 'AIMING TOO BIG'

ALL ILLNESSES CURED

DYSON SPHERE COMPLETE, FULLY OPERATIONAL: EXPERTS SAY 'TOLD YOU SO'

POPULATION REACHING MAX CAPACITY: DISASTER IMMINENT?

GAS GIANTS ELIMINATED, HOW THIS WILL AFFECT YOUR LIFE

MEGA-PLANET CONSTRUCTION COMMENCES

ALIEN CONTACT MADE, FIRST LOOK AT MEAPIAN SOCIETY

MILKY WAY GALACTIC GOVERNANCE COUNCIL FOUNDED

THREE NEW DYSON SPHERES OPERATIONAL: POWER LEVELS UNPRECEDENTED

MEGA-PLANET 'APLIONERTH' CONSTRUCTION COMPLETE, OPEN FOR SETTLEMENT

MYGGC RECOMMENDS EARTH AND MARS MOVED

EARTH AND MARS ARE GOING TO MOVE: WHY THIS WILL END THE WORLD

WHY YESTERDAY'S PLANETARY MOVEMENT DID NOT END THE WORLD

And Phineas was happy - happy for the near-utopian conditions the galaxy enjoyed under the joint-councils rule, happy for the trillions of people that were happy on the three planets in the Local System, and happy for his older sister for bringing all this about.

But he wasn't always happy, even then, even now.

Candace was so busy now. Everyday, taking the wormhole transit down to her offices on Aplionerth, staying there for hours and hours on end, traveling back and forth between there and Mars and Planet Meap and K'rillish - the home planet of the whalemingoes - and generally staying out late and rising early. He felt like she was working herself to death, and yet, she seemed happy enough.

And though many a time he'd tried to work up the nerve to confess his feelings to her, it never seemed right.

He wanted that moment to be special, in a way that even now he was still mostly unable to picture in his head. He didn't want it to be rushed, or hurried, in the minutes she had before leaving her home in the morning. He didn't want to try talking to her about such things when she was groggy and practically dead on her feet when she arrived home late at night.

He'd tried to get over his feelings, telling himself to move on and that they were just never going to happen. But something about that - the idea of just 'giving up' without even trying flew contrary to everything in his nature. It had been years, and yet… he still hadn't had a real chance to try.

He saw Candace more than anyone else in their family, and even that was because he'd convinced her to skip on a housecleaning bot and let him handle it. So, he worked for her, - technically - and was at her house almost every couple of days, and still only saw her awake every other trip or so. The rest of the time, she was either fast asleep in bed or simply gone, off somewhere doing something else that would no doubt end up revolutionizing the galaxy, but left her basically no spare time for anything.

As time had passed, he'd gradually lowered his standards somewhat, trying to get his sister to slow down for just one minute to give him a chance to explain himself to her, to at least this burden off his chest after so many years.

"Candace, please," he'd said one morning, after she'd stumbled in at five in the morning, dead tired from yet another 'long day in the Martian facility'. "I - I have something I need to talk to you about, but it's - it's kind of important and I would really appreciate just a little bit of undistracted time. Is that too much too ask?"

"Uhh…" she'd slurred. "Tell you what, Phin… I'll - I'll clear my schedule for next Saturday. We can - can go someplace or do whatever you're wanting. How's that sound - say… five P.M. CST Earth-time, at, uh, that place downtown. Paul Bunyan's, or whatever?"

"Really?" It was almost too good to be true, and though he didn't want to let himself get his hopes up too high, it was awfully hard. His optimistic nature was back in full force, even at this tiny hint of a chance. This tiny hint, of course, that was better than anything he'd managed to get out of her in the last five years. "Are you serious?"

"Sure - yeah, totally." She yawned and patted him on the shoulder. "And now I'm going to bed. I've got another presentation scheduled in Artkane'ph at eleven." She turned and trudged into her bedroom, and he watched through the open door as she collapsed onto the bed without even bothering to do so much as unmake the covers.

It wasn't much, no, but it was the best chance he had, and he had to make it count.

When next Saturday rolled around, he was ready. Of course, their destination was a public place, which meant that he wouldn't be able to confess his love to her there, but if they could just eat and talk together, he was sure he'd have an opportunity before the night ended. Maybe afterwards, after they'd taken the wormhole back home or something. Heck, maybe he could convince her to skip the wormhole and they could walk home. The streets would be dead - no one walked anywhere more, and it would give them all the privacy he could ask for. Plus, Aplionerth's disc would be visible in the evening sky, and it might end up being the perfect moment.

Of course, by now, he was hardly waiting for 'perfect' anymore.

At four-twenty he was dressed and ready to go. At four-thirty he gave up and took the wormhole to the restaurant, sitting down at a secluded table in the far corner. He turned his phone on silent and placed it in his pocket, not willing to let anything disturb this evening. When the waitress came over, he waved her off. "I'm waiting for someone."

It was all he could do to sit on his hands and wait patiently as time passed, slowly ticking towards five. It was like time itself was slowing down, even as he stared at the second hand slowly making its way around the face of the clock. Other people came into the restaurant, sat down, ate, and left. He watched one couple who seemed to be particularly in love with each other, and only dreamed of being in such a situation with the older sister he had always admired. Of course, he and Candace could never be so public about any affection, but at least they were the same species, right? Incest wasn't nearly as bad as the few unlucky people caught attempting interspecies mating. And even if they had to be a secret their whole lives, he didn't care. He was in love, and anything besides that fact seemed to be less important to him.

How much longer can it possibly be? he wondered, his eyes snapping back to the clock. Oh! 4:57:55 - 4:58. Well, she's cutting it close, but I don't care.

He'd never followed anything so intently as he followed that second hand around the clock. 4:59:30… 4:59:45… 4:59:58… 4:59:59… and finally, finally, 5:00:00 was reached.

His eyes were instantly on the door, waiting eagerly. It was time - it was his opportunity. He'd likely only have one, so he was fully ready to make the most of it. It was five P.M. CST, Earth-time, right as she'd specified. Any moment now… and just like that, the door opened and in stepped-

-someone that he didn't know, but was definitely not Candace.

Where was she? He tore his eyes away from the door to look back at the clock. It was already five minutes past five, and she was nowhere to be seen. Had something happened? Was she okay? Had then been an accident with the wormhole transit? He know that there hadn't been any wormhole accidents for the last fifteen years, but still… it was theoretically a possibility, right?

The minutes after five continued ticking by, falling one after another into the past, and his excitement slowly drained away, leaving an empty space inside his chest. He reached into his pocket and pulled his phone out and held up to his ear. The little device scanned his brainwaves and instantly deduced what he desired of it, ringing with an intensity that sounded almost like a death knell. If she was hurt somehow…

"Flynn, Candace," a voice said crisply from the other end of the line. "I'm busy right now - who's this, and what'cha need?"

It was all he could do to restrain the sigh that was building up inside his lungs. So she wasn't hurt at all. To the contrary, it seemed she was perfectly healthy. "Candace?" he asked, his voice coming out slightly shaky despite his efforts to the contrary.

"It's me, Phin," she answered. "What is it? You know I don't have time for this."

"Candace," he said as calmly as he could muster. "I'm at Paul Bunyan's."

"And?" she echoed. "I don't - oh." There was a sudden pause on the other end of the line. "Shoot, Phineas, I swear, I didn't mean to do this." She was being sincere, he could tell. She'd used his full name, after all, and beside that - when was his sister not sincere? She never meant anything. That was perhaps what made it so bad sometimes. "I had a long day today and the crew at Y'fexial can't get their act together and I've been busy with planning the layout for another D-sphere for Omega-323 and debugging some random crap, and oh, I'm sorry - I didn't to mean to stand you up, I just forgot, I swear."

He could no longer stifle it, and and let out a long sigh. "It's okay, Candace. I'm sure you're busy. I'll just… go home, I guess."

"No, I, uh, I'll make this up to you, I swear," she rushed out. "Look, how about you go to my place instead? I'll wrap things up here as soon as possible and then I'll head straight home, as soon as I can, and we can talk about whatever it is you were talking about this morning. How's that sound?"

"Okay." It was better than nothing. And at least in his sister's home, they would be afforded privacy, so he could cut straight to the point. He was tired of waiting, frankly. For so long he'd been so close, and yet so far, and it was incredibly frustrating. He wasn't mad at Candace, he could never be mad at her, but she… he loved her so much and yet seemed to be unable to tell her and it was eating at his nerves.

"Right." Her brisk, businesslike tone was back. "That works then. Bye." And she snapped off the line before he could get another word in edgewise.

He raised his hand and waved over the waitress. "I'll order now."

"I'm sorry, sir," she replied. "I thought you were waiting for someone and-"

"It's fine." He cut her off. "Just… I'm ready to eat."

"Of course, sir. What can I get for you?"

The food was good - but not too good, eh? - and it was filling, which was all he could ask of it. He ate in silence, alone. When he finished he picked up the tab himself and walked out himself, opting to skip out on the wormhole in favor of the lonely dimness of the nighttime sky. It was past six, so the artificial daylight was completely gone, even though it was only a few minutes past. The disc of Aplionerth cut its eerie shape into the night sky, and he could make out the patterns in the lights from here. Which clump was the one his sister was in right now? Over there, on the mega-planet, the one that housed basically ninety-five percent human population despite the fact that it had been built from complete scratch?

The walk back to Candace's house was only a few minutes, but it was a few minutes in the darkness of the night seemed to close over him like some kind of blanket, choking up his attempts to breathe and hindering his ability to see straight. The air was deathly still - the Planetary Weather Commission not liking to schedule winds during the evening hours to allow for outings without such disturbances, if the population wished to partake in them. Now, though, the silence was almost deafening, broken only by the sound of his shoes against the pavement and his own breath.

The lights of Candace's house turned on automatically for him when he stepped up onto the porch. The system scanned him and the door quickly unlatched itself for him, and he stepped inside, into the empty house.

The surroundings were very familiar to him, and yet the one who lived here was somehow distant - more distant than he would have liked, at any rate.

Maybe he was just being full of himself. After all, she was doing an important job, and just look at everything she'd managed to do so far? How could someone blame her for sticking to it? And that was just the thing, really. He didn't blame her, and he wasn't mad. Just… tired.

Tired of chasing his love for so long, only to be continuously brushed away.

When he was a child, he'd had a chance, and he hadn't taken it. And now, it seemed, he was reaping the consequences. Why did he, of all people, have to be the brother of Candace Gertrude Flynn, and why did he have to fall in love with her? It wasn't like the situation with Ferb and Isabella, what with Ferb having told him that Isabella had gotten her heart broken - over something? - and they had bonded as he supported her during the difficult time that had followed. Candace was… different.

She was amazing, in every definition of the word that Phineas could think to apply. And he wanted nothing more than to simply to confess to her. It almost didn't even matter if she accepted or not… not anymore. He just wanted to get this thing off his chest, and not to Ferb. Not again, especially not after last time.

For a while he sat on the couch in the living room, just staring off into space as minutes fell one after another into the past. His eyelids began to become heavy with boredom, and more than once he caught himself dozing off.

No. That was not going to happen - not on his watch.

There was a television in her bedroom, so he stood up and went in there, sitting on the bedspread and turning it on. The flashing images and constant torrent of sound from the device drowned out the passage of time, and he watched idly as one show ended and another began… and another… and another. The words of the characters on screen became jumbled and ran together, and his eyes grew unfocused and glassy. The television's internal AI detected that its only viewer had fallen asleep, and turned itself off to conserve power, leaving the room dark and silent.

A warm of patch of something landed on his face, and Phineas woke up with a sneeze.

It took his sleep-clouded mind a few moments to gather its wits and comprehend where he was, and what was going on. He shaded his eyes from the sunlight streaming in the window, lighting up the whole of Candace's bedroom in its golden glow. It took a few moments more before the realization really settled in.

And then he started slightly at a movement on the bed next to him. A quick glance in its direction almost sent him toppling off the bed.

It was Candace.

He froze, unsure of what to do. She was sleeping, the same way he'd seen her sleep so many times before - completely clothed, complete with socks (though her shoes were missing and had probably been kicked off onto the floor somewhere), carelessly lying on top of the bedspread, her hair splayed out in every direction as she snored loudly, completely dead to the world.

The only sound that could be heard in the room was her snores, because he was barely breathing as he stood up, for fear of disturbing her in some way. Before slipping out the bedroom door, however, he hesitated. Hesitated and… just did nothing. Nothing, except to just look at her.

There was no doubt, from the feelings stirring inside him, that even after so long, he was in love with the woman lying on that bed. With his sister. Even now, she… he didn't know how to articulate it, exactly. He loved her, and wanted her to let him love her, if that made any sense. She was always on the go, always go busy… and maybe they just weren't meant to be. He simply couldn't keep up with the insane pace of her life, constantly all over the place, doing this and that the other.

Really, he should have abandoned this a long time ago. But even now… he just couldn't bring himself to let go like that. He'd looked up to Candace for as long as he could remember, and knowing that she had pretty much single-handedly been the one to transform the world from what it had been in their childhood into the techno-utopia that it was now had only fueled that all the more.

He couldn't just give up. It was simply not in his nature, especially not about a subject such as this. But what could he do? Simply wait, even longer, until someday he finally managed to get her to slow down long enough to give him a chance to voice himself?

She wasn't doing it purposefully. He knew that. And yet, it really didn't help with how he was feeling right now. But what could he do, exactly? Candace was the one who did the impossible, not him. And this task was looking very insurmountable indeed. And there was nothing he could do, nothing except try, try again, and hope that one day he was successful. It was all anyone could do, really, and yet it felt worse with every passing year that he went without spilling his guts to her.

Maybe it had even reached a creepy level by now, what with him harboring his crush for so long like this. It wasn't healthy for him, that was for sure. He sighed slightly. Maybe it was time to go back to Ferb with this again. Ferb would be polite, and kind, and understanding, he knew. But there would be that light in his brother's eyes… that look on face that all too well showed his inner feelings.

And maybe Ferb was right. Maybe he should just let go. Just give up - throw the baby out with the bathwater and forget the Alamo. Of course, Ferb would never say such things… but it wasn't what was he said. It was what he didn't say - or rather, how he didn't say it. And there was no one better at interpreting Ferb than Phineas himself, and yet…

Giving up was not part of Phineas Flynn's nature. It was an alien concept to him, almost. As he stared at his sister asleep on the bed, a flicker of smile crossed his face still. She looked so peaceful there, completely still like that. It was so rare that he saw his sister like that, instead of the constant flurry of activity that engulfed her waking hours.

Right now, she was still, and serene, and utterly at peace with the world - the world that she had created, pretty much all by herself.

"I love you, Candace," he whispered into the room, scarcely loud enough for himself to hear, much less the sleeping woman.

Turning around, he collected his shoes from in front of the living room couch and slipped out, the front door automatically latching and locking behind him.


End file.
